More Fine Structure badgery

[pozorvlak]

It's become apparent to me that many of the mysteries in Fine Structure depend on the precise order in which the stories occur. Time to get systematic. Obviously, this whole post is full of spoilers.

Comments

[necaris]

Well, in CU, all the technology -- and the means of producing it -- were under Calrus' control. Perhaps at some point he (and Yuen/Poole?) sealed off the arcology (the Antarctica one?)...

[ext_87683]

This theory, that I've had for a while doesn't really help the timeline dilemma but it tries to answer the question "Where did the message on Channels 2 and 3 com from"?:
Maybe Fine Structure takes place in the same multiverse as the Ed Stories, another series written by sam512, since apparently both universes operate under "Layer Theory", and the message is the information that they try to send to back in time to Ed Macpherson, They just happen to tune into that channel.

[pozorvlak]

Hmmmm. Possible, and the presence of (say) technical designs for mechas would help to bulk out the message (because 8TB is really a lot of space for basic scientific knowledge to take up, I think there has to be data in there as well as knowledge, if you see what I mean). But why would Ed's message start with prime numbers and drawings of a circle? I think it's more likely that Sam's recycling the idea of layer theory from the Ed stories, tbh.

[ext_87683]

I'm pretty sure it's a different kind of layer. In the Ed stories layers were apparently natural whereas in Fine Structure they are theorized (by the characters) to be artificial

[pozorvlak]

I'd love to hear those theories when you have time!

I think the total information capacity of the human brain is believed to be about a petabyte - the brain stores information in the connections between neurons, not the neurons themselves. Whether the human brain could store a terabyte of abstract maths and physics is another question, though!

Antarctic dome/Calrus: a man who can phase through walls wouldn't need to unlock the door to leave :-)

[anonymous]

maybe its a bit too obvious, but i think that the anne poole found in the coal seam isnt the anne poole that was teleported away, but the woman that was buried in the mine in TBI.
so that would mean that the next crash will be coming pretty quickly.

[anonymous]

No, she was buried in concrete.
Also, it doesn't seem likely to be the same Mitchell in Crushed Underground, because in Crushed Underground he could have been unharmed by the explosions and been safe from gunshots by phasing. Although perhaps he could have lost his abilities? If he did maybe the reason would be similar to why the Line has apparently ended.

[anonymous]

I would think it's more a matter of not wanting to reveal his powers to the angry army of rebels.

[anonymous]

New story is up. Interesting read, does just enough to answer some questions, yet raise a few more, just as a good story like this should.

After reading this, I get the impression that Crushed Underground happens after the events of the Powers and the teleportation and such, then comes the time of Aks and Illu. Mitch and Anne make it sound like they know what happens after nuclear war, that humanity owes them. Perhaps terraforming the world is what they mean. Or it could be they mean to say that Mitch brought them all to Eden with FTL technology.

Currently, I think it goes with the "present day" timeline as above, then Crushed Underground, then Forgotten Things in Space (at least the first part of it), then what is now labeled 1970-. So present day is on Earth, but 1970- takes place on Eden? I don't know. This theory has holes.

[anonymous]

OK, first, in my opinion, it seems that all the immortal women are the same person, with different names. Second, and I'm fairly certain this is obvious, each Crash is a method of preventing nuclear war. So, none of them will involve nuclear blasts. As we know from 'Two Much Information', the Crash involves wiping information, but does not kill people directly. Nuclear weapons then, are out of the question.

Now, I'm going to present my version of the order of events. You see, it is my theory that the order the stories are placed on the site has nothing too do with there chronological order in the story. they are ordered according to the date at which Sam wrote the story (or rather, the date when he posted the story). Of course, the fact that parts of it could theoretically take place on Eden complicates things. Also, since we know Sam loves time travel, there could be some of that inside this story. Anyway, here is my order of events:

[Crash 1-8 occurs prior to this]

Crash Zero

The Nature of the Weapon

The Big Idea

Two Much

[pozorvlak]

My suggestions are all above, and many of them helpfully include dates :-) They'll probably need re-examining in light of TMI, and Sam's recent one-character change to ODE (see if you can spot it

[pozorvlak]

Done - see this post.